Cyber War: A One-Sided Battle Against A Trumped Up Enemy
from the what-is-it-good-for?--absolutely-nothin' dept
You would have to be a deaf and blind person with a penchant for head-burying to have missed the drum beats of a supposed cyber war the American government has been touting over the past year or so. It's a one-sided conversation that has been hyperbolic on a level normally associated with sketch comedy. Terms like "Cyber Pearl Harbor" are thrown around without any sense of historical context. In fact, many are questioning whether the entire production is simply a political game, with no real threat existing at all. Unfortunately, many more Americans have now incorporated this manufactured fear into their psyches. Still, the drum beat continues, with the United States labeling Iran as our chief enemy in this inevitable, or perhaps already occurring, cyber war.The problem, of course, is that anyone who spends a couple minutes studying what's actually happening realizes that this is a one-sided war, likely started by the West, and our opponent is fighting against our tanks with pea-shooters.
The first shot was probably the release of Stuxnet sometime during or before 2009. Even though no one has officially claimed responsibility everyone knows who was behind it. Stuxnet hit with a bang and did a whole lot of damage to Iran's uranium-enrichment capabilities. The United States followed that up with Flame–the ebola virus of spyware.That's what makes all of this seem so monumentally silly. The government is making use of an American public, which is massively ignorant about who and what Iran is and is capable of, to go legislatively nutbars in our own country. Don't ask me why they're doing it, but they are. Perhaps more importantly, we're being told that we need legislation to protect against an incapable enemy in a war that we started. If that makes sense to you, chances are you need psychiatric care.
What did the Iranians fire back with? A series of massive, on-going and ineffective DDoS attacks on American banks. This is a disproportionate response but not in the way military experts usually mean that phrase. It's the equivalent of someone stealing your car and you throwing an ever-increasing number of eggs at his house in response.
And even more problematic, and frustrating for me personally, is that our government isn't even putting in the effort to fool me properly. It's one thing to have Colin Powell waving a test tube at Congress and shouting "We're all going to die!", but it's quite another to have folks like Gen. William Shelton talking about potential risks in a potential war that we potentially started with a potential threat that we created by attacking it. That's entirely too much potential and not enough blatant falsehood. If the government wants to bullshit us, they can't go in half way. I need real creative lying, not nonsense reports that they have to subsequently pull because they're...you know...made up.
ProPublica reported yesterday that a widely cited Defense Department study claiming Iran's Intelligence Ministry constitutes "a terror and assassination force 30,000 strong" has been "pulled for revisions." It seems there's no proof whatsoever that the 30,000 number wasn't pulled out of thin air.See, it's not that I'm siding with the pea-shooters here, it's that I'm more scared of the guys that started this war with their tanks. Particularly when the result is poorly-conceived legislation.
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Re:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scram_cannon
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Why they did it
There are government contracts that need to be handed out to buddies and campaign contributors.
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Re:
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Re: Re:
http://www.ists.dartmouth.edu/docs/cyberwarfare.pdf
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About
Welton Chang is a Defense Department analyst. Welton served as an active and reserve Army officer from 2005-2012. Welton graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College in 2005 with departmental high honors. While at Dartmouth, Welton worked at the Institute for Security Technology Studies where he co-authored and published a widely-cited monograph on cyber warfare. He is currently an MA candidate in Georgetown University�s Security Studies Program. He is also a Truman National Security Fellow.
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Welton_Chang/
NEXT!!!!
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of software to countries such as India, Pakistan, China, Philippines, and Russia, the risk of rogue
programmers using their access to commit cyber attacks rises"
No wonder he now works at the Defense Dept.
"The success of the 9/11 conspiracy has been attributed in part to a �failure of
imagination� on the part of the U.S. defense and intelligence community."
They never saw the training manual with the cross hairs and plane in front of the WTC towers. Some researchers.
He will fit in perfectly at the defense dept.
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Re: Re: Re:
When you're trying to prove your point in an argument or debate, you link to sources that verify what you say. You do not, repeat, NEVER, say to your opposite to do the work for you or call them lazy when they (rightfully) don't do it.
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Re:
Why shouldn't it be? I'm waiting for how a "cyber attack" can take an entire power grid out that shouldn't be on the internet in the first place.
"There are several scholarly works out there on the subject that you might want to read before you make such stupid assertions."
Care to point to them?
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While I have no doubt that some of it is, most of it is not. And of the stuff that is clasified, it is likely that much of it is over-classified.
Why can I say this? Because the protocols that run the Internet and allow the communication are open.
Vulnerabilities in software and hardware are published openly by responsible companies and the government - take a look over at US-CERT's page - because you can bet that the same vulnerabilities are being traded on the black market.
The IP address ranges that are being used for attacks are controlled by the regional RIRs like ARIN and RIPE, and handed out to ISPs in an open manner - because without this, the Internet would not work.
We're not dealing with classified technology that guides military aircraft or such - this is technology that millions of companies and billions of people have access to. There's no reason for most of it to be classified.
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Hmm.. How would you know what they won't let you know so as to say, "It seems to me.. much of the intel on cyber warefare is classified" What intel?? Just asking!
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Cyber War: A One-Sided Battle Against A Trumped Up Enemy
FTFY
I was watching a video about the drug problem in Russia. I got about a third of the way through when a Russian citizen that operates a rehab started blaming the drug problem on al-CIA-da and basically were calling it drug terror. [Shaking head]
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RE: Cyberwar
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Re: RE: Cyberwar
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Government Benefits of war
The government gains, and the people carry the costs.
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If a power grid can be taken down by some hackers on the internet, the problem isn't the hackers, but why did we put that capability into the power grid in the first place?
supple-spined cretins. Meh.
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You are conflating two very different problems, which is a cheap trick practiced by politicians when they are acting against the public interest.
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One of the weaknesses it mentioned was the Domain Name System.
Remember the specifics of the SOPA fight about "breaking the Internet"?
The key feature was that SOPA, as it was currently written, would prevent the DNS servers from being secured properly - since they would be forced to allow redirects from an untrustworthy source.
Now who's the one believing pre-conceived notions regardless of facts?
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Re: Re:
Remember the specifics of the SOPA fight about "breaking the Internet"?
Remember that provision was dropped before the bill even reached mark-up? I guess that recollection is at odds with your narrative. Sorry, carry on.
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How's the campaign for Evan Stone coming along?
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Hollywood is too blame...
One of the worse was Hugh Jackman in Swordfish. Seriously... stick to sticking things with admantium claws.
The flip side of that are authors... they write about hacking and computers like fantasy authors, taking a few buzz words and working them into their concept of what they think it could/should be... or, what they need to suit their story.
But then people read these books and see these movies and think that this stuff can really be done... or at least, believe it is as easy as they portray on the movies...
And OF COURSE they are scared that someone can crash the whole world with a cellphone...
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Seriously this is like be an a "Tech Birther".
Despite repeated evidence that foreign nations are mining the US to steal our technology. Hell just look at how similar Russia's space shuttle was. Our space shuttle was not the best design by FAR much better designs were put forth but due to the CIA stepping in requiring satellite launch capabilities our shuttle design was chosen. Yet Russia still ended up with a virtual carbon copy.
They were stealing US secrets from day one of the Internet:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18686090/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/how-soviets-stol e-space-shuttle/#.UQF_JSckvng
If a poor nation wanted to learn secrets or just educate themselves and advance their industries or have the capability to screw with the US cyber techniques would be the best at the lowest cost.
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Re: Huh ???
Regardless of whether you believe there is a cyber war brewing, you just have to ask yourself why Congress needs to legislate anything regarding cyber war.
Congress already has the ability to declare war on any nation if they choose to do so. It doesn't matter what weapons the US chooses to use in that war. The US Congress cannot make laws for other countries. The best they can do is enter into treaties.
It just appears as if politicians are looking for a new super word to replace Terrorism, so they are trying CyberWar to see if it can gain enough traction to pass any legislation.
If you are sitting at home in the US and worrying about China, Russia, and Iran, you don't have a super strong spine, you have a super weak mind.
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Re: Re: Huh ???
Don't you think taking measures to prevent war is smarter than being put into a position to have to declare war?
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Re: Re: Huh ???
If someone drops a bunch of troops on US soil, there are clear laws and protocols already in place. But, with cybersecurity, imagine if the military wasn't allowed to prevent anyone from landing weapons or troops in/on US assets or even really see what's going on....and that once that happened...there were conflicting and confusing laws and protocols on how to respond. Especially if you're not 100% sure who's troops/weapons they are. This is what it's currently like in the US from a cybersecurity (war) perspective.
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Re:
They were stealing US secrets from day one of the Internet:
Okay, let me get this straight. Reading the details of that suggests the story does not support your claims at all. We're talking about Russia mining *UNCLASSIFIED* information, that the US *chose* not to classify -- and all of this happened in 1985, so we're not talking about the modern internet at all. And because of that Russia was able to create a similar space shuttle that flew ONCE and only ONCE.
Oh, and it actually ended up benefiting the US, since it made it easy for the US to dock with Mir later on.
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too simple
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FCWL
You can pick from any national government or Commercial/Noncommercial entity (or non-entity - so that Anonymous can play too).
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Seems like there were be more joint efforts between private companies and government
"That�s despite the fact that Google itself admitted it turned to 'U.S. authorities,' which obviously includes the NSA, after the search giant�s Chinese operation was deeply hacked. Former NSA chief Mike McConnell told the Washington Post that collaboration between the NSA and private companies like Google was 'inevitable.'�
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The general population:
Undereducated
Sheeple
The Government:
Authoritarian
Collectivist Rulers
Crony Capitalists
Useful Idiots
Result:
Tyranny
It's very simple if you look at the indices.
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the first shots have been fired on GPS
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Re: the first shots have been fired on GPS
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Cui bono?
Cui bono? (Who's getting rich off this?)
Answer is: some big crony contractors that make campaign contributions, as usual.
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Re: Re:Modern Bogeymen
see a pattern yet???
we just GOTTA have a bogeyman, how else can we feel secure??
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Hysterically hilarious hypocrisy
Meanwhile, they also pass laws that make criminals out of anyone using a computer at all.
They pass laws to make it easier to blow the whistle on evil business, but destroy people doing it to themselves.
It's amazing how dysfunctional that is. It's like a person who would think of the worst things all the time, screaming and shouting how they're wrong, while hiding in their own shadow to commit those exact same crimes.
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You're making a common mistake
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Re: You're making a common mistake
That's why I put the link to the article about Google seeking help from the US government over China hacking. Private companies are going to be working with the US government when it furthers both of their goals. I doubt that all of that is going to be widely disclosed, but I imagine it will continue to happen.
And private contractors are doing a lot of the security work for the US government anyway, so the line between them can be hard to discern.
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Re: Re: You're making a common mistake
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Wrong Enemy
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Reasonably cautious, prudent, paranoia
This is moronic disinformation, of course. That's all anyone needs to say about that.. ~except that, "you might remember you said that when the lights go out, possibly."
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I just saw this
Eric Schmidt Speaks to China Hackers - Business Insider: �'The disparity between American and Chinese firms and their tactics will put both the government and the companies of the United States at a distinct disadvantage,' Mr Schmidt wrote, according to the Wall Street Journal. He argues that the Chinese state backed cyber crime for economic and political gain, making it the biggest online menace in the world....
"Mr Schmidt and Mr Cohen come close to suggesting that western governments imitate China so they are not disadvantaged by its activities."
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